How OMGPOP Founder Charles Forman 'Grew Up' And Became A Multi-Millionaire

On Saturday, Charles Forman turned 32. He celebrated the evening with close friends in New York City including Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon and OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter.

Part of him thought that's why he had been called to New York for an emergency trip. His friends were luring him from Chicago with a surprise party.

Instead, they had something much greater to celebrate. Zynga was buying Forman's company, OMGPOP, for $210 million after its smash game Draw Something hit 35 million downloads in 5 weeks.

One week prior, Forman's bank account had $1,700 in it. But sitting at dinner surrounded by friends, Forman was a multi-millionaire.

We grabbed drinks with Forman on Wednesday night, the evening Zynga acquired OMGPOP. Here's what he had to say.

* * *

Forman grew up in Chicago; he never went to college. He always loved video games although he wasn't allowed to play them.

As a kid, Forman mowed every lawn on his street to afford a gaming console.

Still forbidden to play, Forman found there were two hours every day, between three and five, when he was home alone and his parents were still at work. He'd remove the console from its hiding spot, untangle all of the wires, and play until he heard the garage door open. Then he'd race to hide the device. This became a daily routine.

Forman says he was always curious about how game cartridges worked. He'd pick at them with a screwdriver, wondering what it would take to make the game stop working.

He learned to program by taking game codes from magazines and plugging them into his computer. If one symbol was typed wrong, nothing would happen. If it was typed in perfectly, the computer game would come to life.

When Forman co-founded OMGPOP, he wanted to create a business to harness his childhood obsession with video games. But OMGPOP didn't start as a gaming company.

In 2006, Forman was approached by a friend he met in Japan, Dan Albritton. Albritton applied to Y Combinator and lured Forman to California by telling him it was a free trip (Y Combinator covers the cost for startups to fly out and pitch it).

The pitch went terribly. Paul Graham hated their concept but realized Albritton and Forman were smart. He asked what other ideas they had.

Forman pitched a business he had in his back pocket. The idea had been a joke between him and friends.

When asked what he did for a living, Forman would often reply, "I'm the founder of an auction dating site."

Forman pitched it to Graham without knowing Graham had a soft spot for dating companies. Graham asked if the pair would join the 2006 class to work on that instead.